Historic Overlay Districts (HODs) of Loudoun County, VA

Tags  society, Taylorstown, Loudoun, planningCadastre, Aldie, Oatlands, Site, Historic, Virginia, Waterford, District, society, Goose Creek, National Register, Cultural, Beaverdam Creek, Landmark, Planning, County, Bluemont

Summary

The layer is a general overlay identifying properties and protecting unique historic assets within the Historic Overlay Districts (HODs), established with the Loudoun County Zoning Ordinance. Any proposed construction, alteration or demolition of a structure within the boundaries of a County-administered Historic District is subject to architectural review by the Historic District Review Committee (HDRC) per the Loudoun County Zoning Ordinance. Only proposed constructions, alterations, or demolitions of a structure or landscape inside of the 35-foot buffer area of a parcel within the Beaverdam Creek Historic Roadways District require review by HDRC. The county's Historic Districts serve a number of purposes; To protect and enhance areas with special character or historic interest, To foster civic pride, To maintain and improve property values; To enhance tourism, To provide for the public identification and general welfare of the county's residents.. Any proposed construction, alteration or demolition of a structure within the boundaries of a County-administered Historic District is subject to review.

Description

The data set identifies the Historic Overlay Districts (HODs) of the Loudoun County Zoning Ordinance, approved in December 2023. The term "Historic Overlay District" includes, without limitation, the following: a. Historic Site Districts, b. Historic and Cultural Conservation Districts, c. Historic Roadway Districts, d. Historic Access Corridor Districts, e. Such other Historic Districts as the Board of Supervisors has the power to establish. The County-administered Historic and Cultural Conservation Districts currently include Aldie, Bluemont, Goose Creek, Oatlands, Taylorstown, and Waterford. The Historic Roadways District currently includes Beaverdam Creek, and two Historic Site Districts currently include Broad Run Toll House and Welbourne Plantation. The Historic Roadways Districts differs from the other districts in that it does not encompass entire parcels, rather the Historic Roadways comprises only land within 35 feet of the centerline of a designated roadway. HODs are regulated in accordance with the Code of Virginia §§ 15.2-2306 and 15.2-2283 and are subject to Chapter 5.08 (Historic Overlay District) and Chapter 10.10.08 (Historic Overlay Districts - Additional Requirements) of the Loudoun County Zoning Ordinance. The Loudoun County Planning and Zoning Department administers the County's Historic Districts Program.The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors may establish Historic Overlay Districts (HODs) or remove HODs pursuant to Code of Virginia §§ 15.2-2306 and 15.2-2283, and by Zoning Map Amendment as provided in Section 10.10.01 and Section 10.10.08. Where there is a conflict, the provisions of Section 10.10.08 apply. The HODs are administered by Loudoun County's Department of Planning and Zoning.

Credits

There are no credits for this item.

Use limitations

These data were generated for use by Loudoun County and are available to the public. These data are intended for use at 1:2400 scale or smaller. Acknowledgement of Loudoun County would be appreciated in products derived from this data.

Extent

Scale Range

There is no scale range for this item.

Themes or categories of the resource Planning & Cadastral, Society

Content type ⇔ Downloadable Data

Theme keywords society, planningCadastre

Thesaurus ▼►

Theme keywords society

Thesaurus ▼►

Theme keywords Site, Historic, District, National Register, Cultural, Landmark, Planning

Thesaurus ▼►

Place keywords Taylorstown, Loudoun, Aldie, Oatlands, Virginia, Waterford, Goose Creek, Beaverdam Creek, County, Bluemont

Thesaurus ▼►

Title Historic Overlay Districts (HODs) of Loudoun County, VA

Publication date 2011-06-02

Presentation formats digital map

FGDC geospatial presentation format vector digital data

Responsible party - originator 

Organization's name Loudoun County, Virginia, Department of Planning and Zoning

Dataset languages English (UNITED STATES)

Status completed

Spatial representation type vector

Supplemental information 

The Historical District layer was originally created as a multi-tile layer in 11/98 to reflect parcels lying within the six County-administered Historic Districts. The District boundaries were initially drawn from data collected during a Virginia Historic Landmark Commission's (now Va. Dept. of Historic Resources) survey of historic structures, conducted in the late 1970's and early 1980's. The six County-designated Historic and Cultural Conservation Districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with the Waterford and Oatlands Historic Districts also designated as National Historic Landmarks; however, the boundaries are not identical. The Beaverdam Creek Historic Roadways District is not listed on the National Register. In October 2025, the Historic Sites were added to the new Historic Overlay District layer to fully map all HODs. The National Register forms were consulted to make sure the areas were mapped as accurately as possible. The coordinate system is Virginia State Plane (North), Zone 4501, datum NAD83 HARN (vertical datum, if applicable, NAVD88), US Survey foot units.

Processing environment Esri ArcGIS 13.1.8.41833

ArcGIS item properties 

Name ⇔ GISDBB.GISBROW.HISTORIC_OD_POLY

Location ⇔ Server=gissqldblis; Service=sde:sqlserver:gissqldblis; Database=GISDBB; Version=sde.DEFAULT

Access protocol ⇔ ArcSDE Connection

Extent 

Geographic extent 

Bounding rectangle 

West longitude -77.900023

East longitude -77.567605

South latitude 38.972634

North latitude 39.260451

Extent 

Geographic extent 

Bounding rectangle 

Extent type 

Extent used for searching

West longitude ⇔ -77.892488

East longitude ⇔ -77.429477

North latitude ⇔ 39.260432

South latitude ⇔ 38.971487

Extent contains the resource ⇔ Yes

Extent in the item's coordinate system 

westBL ⇔ 11655630.175062

eastBL ⇔ 11786058.530018

southBL ⇔ 7038609.889467

northBL ⇔ 7142664.404455

exTypeCode ⇔ Yes

Point of contact - point of contact 

Organization's name Loudoun County, VA, Department of Planning and Zoning

Contact's position Front counter

Contact information ▼►

8:30-5:00 EST, M-F

Resource maintenance 

Update frequency as needed

Legal constraints 

Limitations of use 

See access and use constraints information.

Constraints 

Limitations of use 

These data were generated for use by Loudoun County and are available to the public. These data are intended for use at 1:2400 scale or smaller. Acknowledgement of Loudoun County would be appreciated in products derived from this data.

ArcGIS coordinate system 

Type ⇔ Projected

Geographic coordinate reference ⇔ GCS_North_American_1983_HARN

Projection ⇔ NAD_1983_HARN_StatePlane_Virginia_North_FIPS_4501_Feet

Coordinate reference details ⇔ 

ProjectedCoordinateSystem 

WKID 2924

XOrigin -110512500

YOrigin -88858000

XYScale 3048.0060960121928

ZOrigin 0

ZScale 1

MOrigin 0

MScale 1

XYTolerance 0.0032808333333333331

ZTolerance 0.001

MTolerance 0.001

HighPrecision true

LatestWKID 2924

WKT PROJCS["NAD_1983_HARN_StatePlane_Virginia_North_FIPS_4501_Feet",GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983_HARN",DATUM["D_North_American_1983_HARN",SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137.0,298.257222101]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],PROJECTION["Lambert_Conformal_Conic"],PARAMETER["False_Easting",11482916.66666666],PARAMETER["False_Northing",6561666.666666666],PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",-78.5],PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_1",38.03333333333333],PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_2",39.2],PARAMETER["Latitude_Of_Origin",37.66666666666666],UNIT["Foot_US",0.3048006096012192],AUTHORITY["EPSG",2924]]

Reference system identifier 

Value ⇔ 2924

Codespace ⇔ EPSG

Version ⇔ 6.3(9.0.0)

Vector ▼►

ArcGIS Feature Class Properties ▼►

Scope of quality information ▼►

Data quality report - Completeness omission  ▼►

It is the County's plan to reconcile County Historic Districts with Virginia State and National Historic Boundaries. Features may have been eliminated or generalized due to scale and intended use. To assist Loudoun County, Virginia in the maintenance of the data, please provide any information concerning discovered errors, omissions, or other discrepancies found in the data.

Data quality report - Conceptual consistency  ▼►

Topologically clean

Data quality report - Completeness omission  ▼►

It is the County's plan to reconcile County Historic Districts with Virginia State and National Historic Boundaries. Features may have been eliminated or generalized due to scale and intended use. To assist Loudoun County, Virginia in the maintenance of the data, please provide any information concerning discovered errors, omissions, or other discrepancies found in the data.

Data quality report - Quantitative attribute accuracy  ▼►

Retention of attribute accuracy throughout the coverage to geodatabase feature class coversion process was ensured by a QA/QC programmatic check. To meet satisfactory QA/QC requirements the input coverage and output feature class must have, on a record by record basis, identical attribution when comparing all concatenated fields to all the user-defined attribution.

Data quality report - Absolute external positional accuracy  ▼►

Retention of coordinate accuracy throughout the coverage to geodatabase feature class conversion process was ensured by a QA/QC programmatic check. To meet satisfactory QA/QC requirements the input coverage and output feature class must have the same record total, and on a record by record basis, area, perimeter, and length differential of less than +/- 0.5%.

Process step ▼►

The Waterford Historic District gained additional parcels in January of 2011, as a result of ZMAP 2009-007. 21 parcels were included in this District addition. This time was also used to "clean up" the data in the Waterford District by filling in the remaining area of a split parcel.

Process step ▼►

The Beaverdam Creek Historic Roadway District added to the county-wide layer. It had been previously left out of the Historic and Cultural Conservation District layer because it is a roadway distict. It identifies consenting parcels of property owners who live along 32 rural roads in southwest Loudoun County between Middleburg and Upperville. A tablular database was used to select the appropriate parcels from the existing parcels layer and paste them into the existing Historic District layer. The parcels were then Dissolved together to remove internal parcel lines so that only the Roadway District's outer boundary would be included in the final, edited layer.

Process step ▼►

This data set was part of a batch process that converted legacy data from ArcInfo coverage in Librarian to a single-tiled ArcInfo coverage in preparation for a final coversion to ArcSDE Geodatabase Feature Classes. Data were extracted from Librarian using the EXTRACT TOPOLOGICAL command. Multi-tiled data sets were extracted into multiple coverages and then combined based on the feature type(s). Layers with both polygon and arc feature classes were processed with the Arc commands, MAPJOIN and DISSOLVE. Arc feature classes alone were processed with the Arc commands, APPEND and DISSOLVE. Layers with both arc and point feature classes and point feature classes alone were processed with the Arc command, APPEND. When used, the Arc command, DISSOLVE, was given with the <#all> option. All coverages were then reprojected to HARN 83 using the following .prj file specifications: INPUT PROJECTION STATEPLANE UNITS FEET ZONE 5551 DATUM NAD27 NADCON PARAMETERS OUTPUT PROJECTION STATEPLANE UNITS FEET FIPSZONE 4501 DATUM HPGN NADCON PARAMETERS END This dataset was then converted to a feature class in a geodatabase in ArcSDE.

Process step ▼►

In October 2025, the new Historic Zoning Overlay was created by exporting the Historic and Cultural Districts and the single Historic Roadways District into a new layer. The Historic Roadway District was edited to only show the 35' area extending from district roadway centerlines. The Historic Sites were created by identifying the parcels containing each site (Broad Run Toll House and Welbourne Plantation) and referring to the National Register of Historic Places applications to identify the appropriate area within each.

Process step ▼►

Before loading the new County Historic District layer to the SDE database, it was edited to "clean up" any existing gaps or slivers in the data. Topology rules were applied to the County Historic District & Parcel layers to remove as many small District gaps &/or Parcel overlaps as possible.

Process step ▼►

The Historical District layer was originally created as a multi-tile layer to identify parcels lying within the six County-administered Historic Districts. The District boundaries were initially drawn from data collected during a Virginia Historic Landmark Commission's (now Va. Dept. of Historic Resources) survey of historic structures, conducted in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Source data ▼►

Survey established historic structures and district boundaries

Distributor ▼►

8:00-4:30 EST, M-F

Visit the Loudoun County GeoHUB to download the HODs from the Open Data portal at: https://geohub-loudoungis.opendata.arcgis.com/ in multiple formats

Distribution format 

Name ⇔ SDE Feature Class

Details for object GISDBB.GISBROW.HISTORIC_OD_POLY ▼►

Feature geometry.

ESRI

Coordinates defining the features.

Short name of Historic Overlay District

Loudoun County

User generated text

Internal feature number.

ESRI

Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.

Full name of Historic Overlay District

Loudoun County

User generated text

Name of Historic Sub-District, if applicable

Loudoun County

User generated text

Category of Historic Overlay District

Loudoun County

Date feature class edited/updated

Loudoun County

12/31/1899 is a default value for creation date, User generated for rest

Overview Description 

Entity and Attribute Overview 

HI_UPD_SOURCE: Source that created or edited feature class

Entity and Attribute Detail Citation 

Source Definition 0 Unknown 1 Legacy 2 County 3 Contract

Metadata language English (UNITED STATES)

Metadata character set utf8 - 8 bit UCS Transfer Format

Scope of the data described by the metadata dataset

Scope name ⇔ dataset

Last update 2025-12-24 

ArcGIS metadata properties

Metadata format ArcGIS 1.0

Standard or profile used to edit metadata FGDC

Created in ArcGIS for the item 2026-06-01 16:36:29

Last modified in ArcGIS for the item 2026-06-23 09:37:50

Automatic updates

Have been performed Yes

Last update 2026-06-23 09:37:50

Metadata contact - point of contact 

Organization's name Loudoun County, VA, Department of Planning and Zoning

Contact's position Front counter

Contact information ▼►

8:00-5:00 EST, M-F

Constraints 

Limitations of use 

This metadata reflects the source Geodatabase format and specific elements may not apply if your data is exported to SHP or DXF products. User must be aware that changes to data schema occur during data export that may not be reflected in this metadata, which represents Loudoun County's corporate geodatabase. Acknowledgement of Loudoun County would be appreciated in the use of this metadata.